Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem. John 4:20

I had spent much of a Saturday morning on the platform of an evangelical church’s sanctuary worshipping my heart out. It was a glorious time, where those who wanted to, came and joined together with voices and instruments and anyone could call out the next worship song from a sheaf of about 500 chord/lyric sheets provided (the only real limitation to what you could choose). People came and went as they needed to, something like a pick-up volleyball game, but mostly people stayed.

Of course, stalwart worshipers had an awesome time worshiping with fewer fetters than a typical church service would allow. And many of them enjoyed having my gang there because we came with fewer fetters than they were used to. On the music stand underneath the sheaf of chord/lyric sheets I found a detailed blueprint of the service which was scheduled for the next day…right down to the minute, exactly how long each song, prayer and spoken words would take to fit into the package called ‘Sunday Worship Service’.

I was there the next day and marveled at how well the worship leader feigned spontaneity and freedom while meticulously following the schedule I’d seen. Nothing wrong with this, mind you; he did a good job; it was practically a work of art. But it reminded me of the worship struggle that has emerged in churches over the past few decades between format and freedom.

John’s Gospel practically opens with an argument on how to worship. In today’s verse the speaker frames the topic referring to two seemingly opposite proof texts, but Jesus doesn’t bother taking a side. It’s like he’s saying that the time is coming when the nits about where and when worship will lose significance in the who and what. That’s because the Scriptural basis for worship is far more than proof-texting. In fact, the Scriptural basis for life itself is far more than proof-texting.

Over the past many centuries, a conviction arose that spiritual life must be objective and sterile of emotions; any feelings we bring into our gatherings are not ‘safe’. Somewhere along the way, as a result of the idolization of doctrine, unbridled dogma became seen as the only true mark of a New Testament church. Yet the very things that seemed to enthrall Jesus the most in the Bible got lost in our obsession with straining imaginary gnats from empty wine glasses.

But like the Pharisees of old, micro-precision often leads to macro-error. Technical accuracy can result in missing the forest for the trees. Of course whenever the idolization of doctrine rears its ugly head it’s bound to create a backlash. For the Pharisees, the backlash was Jesus, and this struggle has continued to over the millennia.

Which brings us back to our topic, today, a Scriptural basis for worship (and life, itself) is far more than proof-texting. In our day, believers have become far more interested in the practical living out of the Faith than in its exegetical underpinnings and that’s not a bad thing. If you read the Gospels and parts of John’s Revelation…if you look at the theophanies found in the Old Testament (where Jesus shows up, often called ‘The Angel of the Lord’) you will probably walk away with a much more complete knowledge of Jesus than you ever could from proof-texting.

Just as you would probably walk away with a much more complete knowledge of political candidates by sitting down and having dinner with them than you ever could from soundbites on TV or memes on social media. No wonder Jesus invites us to have dinner with Him, walk with Him, and sit with Him (Rev 3:4, 20, 21).

So we’ve moved from focus on a micro-precise view of Scripture to a macro-truth view. We’re moving from a sound-bite knowledge of Jesus to a more holistic knowledge. The second change that affects our Scriptural basis of worship is… (To be continued…)